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/sci/ - Science & Math

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5830085 No.5830085 [Reply] [Original]

Why do things exist instead of not existing? It doesn't make any sense. If you think it makes any sense then you are ignorant to just how crazy reality is. You can dissect knowledge all you want but there is no knowledge about how something can exist, on the most fundamental level.

>> No.5830247

Allow me to introduce you to Absurdism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism

Enjoy your stay.

>> No.5832430
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5832430

>> No.5832440

>>5832430
It's funny because that's the exact opposite of how each of those things work.

>> No.5832442

If things didn't exist you wouldn't be here

>> No.5833108 [DELETED] 
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[ERROR]

What is existence?

>> No.5833118

Why do things exist instead of not existing? It doesn't make any sense (according to arbitrary prior propositional axiomatics that I've tried to impose on material reality).

Fix'd. There now the "difficulty" has shown itself to be but a confusion of your linguistic processing system.

>> No.5833127

>>5832440
How so, I don't get it?

>> No.5833139

>>5832440
In fairness, the unfalsifiable, undefined string "theory" is finally losing its dominance over all funding and jobs, and thanks to quantum computing people are looking seriously at fundamentals again. This Feynman "NATURE IS WEIRD LOL GET USED TO IT" and pseudomathematics should be dead soon enough.

So science will again become a pursuit of knowledge.

>> No.5833147

>>5833118
Feel free to describe systematic propositional axiomatics that can sensibly describe the entirety of existence?

If you can't come up with them, then consider that all you contributed to this thread was coming up with the most obnoxious way to agree with OP by saying that things existing doesn't make sense because it doesn't have to.

>> No.5833168

>>5833127
If you've ever talked to a physicist, you'll find that they don't give a shit about falsifiability or sensibility or even coherence. Their explanations of quantum theory range from "shut up and calculate" to "nature is weird, get used to it" to "magic irreversible wavefunction collapse". (There is no explanation of the nature of this collapse, or precise sufficient conditions, or an explanation for why it fails to conserve probability or be reversible when EVERY OTHER PHYSICAL PHENOMENON manages this.)

Their mathematics are inconsistent and they routinely divide and subtract infinity. When the equations are nonsense, they isolate the garbage as best they can and plug in experimental values. They truncate divergent series to get an "approximation" to the "actual value".

I have never met a theologian dumber or more illogical than a physicist.

>> No.5833183

>>5833168
>why it fails to ... be reversible when EVERY OTHER PHYSICAL PHENOMENON manages this.
That's because the initial state vector, evolved forward in time in accordance with the Schrodinger equation, is only half the picture. For a complete picture, you should combine it with a final state vector which you evolve backwards.

>> No.5833191

>>5833183
>to determine how a system evolves, plug in the observed evolution of the system
Stay scientific, physics.

>> No.5833194

>>5833168
quit strawmanning terrible mathematician/theoretical physicists with all physicists, ironically your life would be enriched if you quit taking everything to the extreme

>why it fails to conserve probability or be reversible when EVERY OTHER PHYSICAL PHENOMENON manages this
Every physical phenomenon is reversible in a way that wavefunction collapse is not?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_process

>Their mathematics are inconsistent and they routinely divide and subtract infinity. When the equations are nonsense, they isolate the garbage as best they can and plug in experimental values. They truncate divergent series to get an "approximation" to the "actual value".
This is a good description of mathematicians and maybe high level theoretical physicists, but none of the physicists I know work in infinities.

>> No.5833200

>>5833194
>quit strawmanning
>links to wiki page explaining "irreversibility" as it occurs when discarding information about reversible physical processes, claims that this justifies wavefunction collapse as an irreversible physical process
>calls QFT "high level theoretical physics"
>accuses mathematicians of writing gibberish, when they have actual consistent axiomatic systems to work in

>> No.5833203

>>5833200
but mathematicians subtract and divide infinities which is what you originally claimed was wrong, now that is consistent axiomatics?

>> No.5833204

>>5833191
No, you choose an initial state and choose a set of final states. Which final state happens is determined by the Born rule; it's random. You can make statements about what happens in between by taking the initial and final states and using them to compute weak values.

>> No.5833208

>>5833203
Mathematicians do not do that. Perhaps you are confusing set theory (where words like "subtraction" and "division" may be used with a very different meaning than anything physicists might mean) with calculus (where any subtraction or division of infinity would be nonsensical). It is the latter that physicists do, but mathematicians do not.

>>5833204
Where does the Born rule come from? Why can't I apply it on arbitrarily small time intervals to obtain classical paths? How do you calculate its probabilities? How are they affected by relativity?

>> No.5833216

>>5833208
>Where does the Born rule come from?
It is postulated.
>Why can't I apply it on arbitrarily small time intervals to obtain classical paths?
You have one set of final states in this interpretation. You don't get to apply it over and over again. Collapse is a derived concept.
>How do you calculate its probabilities?
With the Born rule. In the Schrodinger picture, you'd have to evolve the initial state forward or the final state backward before combining them, but it doesn't matter which. In the Heisenberg picture, the states don't evolve. In the path integral picture, you sum probability amplitudes for getting from the initial to the final state, and then square the modulus.
>How are they affected by relativity?
They are invariant.

>> No.5833221

>>5833216
There we go. Probabilities are postulated to appear at the end of the calculation. The "calculation" (involving all sorts of normal-ordering infinities to be subtracted off, truncation of infinite series, renomalization tricks, non-existent infinite "bare masses", etc) applies to atomic interactions which cannot be subdivided because "you don't get to do that".

Then a vague reference to the Schrodinger picture versus Heisenberg picture, both of which require a background spacetime, followed by the bizarre claim that the probabilities are "invariant" with respect to relativity. Given that the probability of -any- observation of an event which is not causally connected to me is zero, does invariance mean that all probabilities are zero?

I guess Feynman would say, just divide by the zero and cancel to get the measured mass...

>> No.5833222

>>5830085
>Why do things exist instead of not existing? It doesn't make any sense.

Asking a philosophical question on /sci/ oh boy here we go!!!!!!!!!

This gem was already answered 200 years ago in a satisfyingly convoluted way.

But I won't say by who because you don't deserve to know. I'll give you a hint. A German.

>> No.5833229

>>5830085
Tegmark and Conway proved that reality is just math. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_universe_hypothesis

So reality exists because math is discovered, not invented. But because of the incompleteness theorem and uncountability of noncomputable numbers, you can't know nuthin. And we have free will because 6+12÷3 can equals 10 or 6 depending on what you choose.

>> No.5833231

>>5833221
>Probabilities are postulated to appear at the end of the calculation.
Is there a problem with this? You do a calculation, you get a probability. The infinity games are a separate issue which I'm not going to address, but there's plenty of work on that.

>Given that the probability of -any- observation of an event which is not causally connected to me is zero
I didn't say anything about observations. Which final state happens isn't something you could personally know. To predict your experiences, you'd need to go further and calculate probability distributions for the weak values.

>> No.5833233

>>5833231
>"shut up and calculate"
>not going to address mathematical problems with the calculations being nonsense
>says "didn't mention observations" as though that's an excuse for the theory being unable to handle them, -after- claiming the theory could interact with relativity

You're acting exactly like I originally described in >>5833168

Stay classy, /sci/.

>> No.5833237

>>5833233
I just told you how to handle observations. What's the problem?

>> No.5833243

I guess a 24-hour ban wasn't long enough to make an impression about the kind of posts that are and are not tolerated on /sci. Let's see how you like a week.

>> No.5833275
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5833275

I'd say that's because we can't confirm the existence of nonexistent things, so everything appears to exist by nature of that.

The idea of "existence" in general is really pretty hazy, but when you talk about "things", you could either mean objects that exist, or descriptions of objects. Objects that don't exist and can't be described are the same as nothing, I'd say.

If 'a thing' is an existing object, then by definition you've already answered your own question - anything that exists simply does.

On the other hand, it's more interesting to take the definition of 'a thing' as being a description of an object that may or may not exist. In this case, there's a distinction between the representation of an object, and the object itself. So it's possible for a thing to essentially exist, but not actually refer to any object. Like superman, or mickey mouse. But even concepts exist, they just exist as the symbols we mistake for the objects they represent. So since things exist, and they refer to objects that don't exist, the objects they refer to aren't things, and thus they don't exist and can't be referred to - the same as nothing.

So all things that "don't exist" refer to nothing, which does and doesn't exist. Therefore, just like something and nothing is something, something can both exist and not exist, since it's the same as something and nothing.

>> No.5833280

>>5833139
Please clarify.

>> No.5833286

>>5833280
It's kind of nonsensical; quantum computing is all application of well-understood stuff. It doesn't force rethinking the foundations at all.

>> No.5833287

Physics would not have advanced as much as it did if all ideas had to be completely rigorous when originally proposed. I suspect pure mathematics would have had trouble as well.

>> No.5833300

>>5833147

Sensual reality has no obligation to be described by axiomatics and the core is that you can project an infinite amount of consistent axiomatic systems without coming up with the proverbial equivalent of a hammer.

"So like things exist because fucking ponies" ad infinitum

>> No.5833348

>>5833229
This is one of the dumbest ToEs I've ever heard.

>> No.5833350

>>5830085

Are you retarded? it makes sense that things exist instead of not existing because they do exist.

>> No.5833353

>>5833300
No one said it had that sort of obligation, but you still aren't really saying anything other than you agree with OP because whatever the fuck sensual reality is isn't obligated to make sense.

Something that does make sense however, would have a consistent set of axioms and logic that followed to describe it in completeness, OP's question was basically how is it that many sensible models can be created and observed within the framework of existence while existence itself seems to have no complete model.

>> No.5833359

>>5833350
>It makes sense that the water is blue because, uh, water is blue.
We have a genius here folks.

>> No.5833362

>>5833359
how is an alligator shaped

>> No.5833363

>>5833362
or even better
how is a circle shaped

>> No.5833366

>>5833362
what's the Pi equivalent for calculating an alligator?

>> No.5833368

>>5833366
tau/2

>> No.5833388

>>5833363
At what temperature does number 7 melt?

>> No.5833395

>>5833388
-34 k

>> No.5833405

>>5833363
It has a radius and a circumference, the ratio of which is equal to pi.

It can be summarized with this equation: x^2 + y^2 = 1

>> No.5833406

>>5833405
>radius
I meant diameter

>> No.5833410

>>5833405
so basically
a circle is shaped like itself

>> No.5833412

>>5833410
No, there's a clear definition. What part of it do you find confusing?

>> No.5833433

>>5833412
>No, there's a clear definition.

It's actually not. It's an example of an equation which might describe one, and one fact about them.

Here's a definition: a circle is a set of all points on a plane a given distance from a given point.

>> No.5833459

>>5833433
Yeah you're right

>> No.5834225

Interesting question. It appears in math as well. Does a well-ordering of the reals exist? Axiom of choice implies it but nobody can construct it.